We start by being told that in Japan collapsed, at the beginning of the new millennium. Ten million people are unemployed, and eight hundred thousand students boycotted schools. The adults began to fear the youth to such an extent that they passed the Battle Royale Act.
Every year, a randomly selected class is sent to an island, against their will. They are fitted with collars that monitor the wearer�s heart rate and location, and that can be detonated by the people in charge of the game. The game itself consists of each student being given a different weapon (as useful as a machine gun, as useless as a pot lid) and being told to kill each other. If more than one student remains alive at the end of the three days, the collars are detonated and they all die. If just one is standing, they get to live.
We meet the forty students from Class B. There�s the troubled Shuyu Nanahara, his friend Noriko Nakagawa, the only well behaved girl in the class, their friend Yoshitoki Kuninobu, the most popular girl in the class, Mitsuko Souma, and the rest. They are joined by two exchange students- the silent but deadly Kazuo Kiriyama, and the mysterious Shougu Kawada. The class is put in the charge of their abused old teacher, who was once stabbed by Kuninobu, Kitano, played by Japanese acting/writing/directing legend Beat Takeshi. He tells them the rules, and sends them out to kill.
It�s an intriguing premise, although it seems shallow at first glance. Everyone has a pre-existing relationship, and they�re forced to throw that aside and kill the people they may have loved in order to survive. On the other hand, they are forced to kill the people they hated- something that some characters look forward to far too much.
One of the biggest achievements of Battle Royale is how it somehow manages to give forty three characters their own stories. Our main focus is on four or so select groups, and Shuyu and Noriko are definitely the heroes of the piece, but all the other characters get a look in. It helps that some of them die after we�ve seen them for only minutes, and that many are grouped together, but every character has something at least resembling their own story arc, both with what they do on the island, and how they related to each other before the ordeal.
But that�s not what you're watching Battle Royale for. You watch it for the violence. And this film has violence oozing out of its many bullet holes. You�ve got machine gun fights, axe attacks, exploding collars, the bloody after-effects of poison, and an unfortunate case of groin stabbing. Much of the blood is CG (mainly when it sprays), but it still mixes well with the real (fake) stuff to make any gore-hound happy. The scene in the lighthouse in particular is unforgettable.
Even if you don�t like gore, the characters we�re supposed to like are well done enough to make us care about their survival. And, if you�re so inclined, there are some excellent villains here to enjoy- particularly the psychotic Mitsuko, who gladly throws away her popularity when she discovers how much she enjoys killing people.
For fans of Japanese culture, there�s more than just the violence and the presence of Beat Takeshi here. Of particular note is the very camp instructional video that is played for the students near the beginning of the movie. Presented by the impossibly perky Oneesan, it�s probably the biggest laughs of Battle Royale, although there are more in there, and fortunately most of them are not unintentional, although many are very, very dark. Also worth mentioning is Chiaki Kuriyama�s small role as Takako Chigusa. She�s not in it much, but she is Gogo Yubari, so she must be mentioned. There�s also some social commentary here, if you�re familiar with Japanese sociology. I�m not, so it went right over my head, but it�s there.
Battle Royale is probably my favourite of all (the admittedly few) Asian films I�ve seen. It gets a little bit muddled and confusing at the end, so it loses a point for that, but it�s very, very close to being a ten. It�s got cult written all over it, and if you�re me, that�s a good thing.
